Saturday, October 3, 2015

Update as of 12 December 2016 - Flight Illusion shipped me a replacement GSA-125 some time ago and I'm happy to report it works beautifully.

Back again.

Work events have kept me away from the build but that has not stopped me buying parts and longing for the day when I can have a clean run at the sim.

First up, I ordered a couple of more realistic standby gauges from Flight Illusions, to replace the separate air speed and altitude gauges that were in there (anyone want to buy them?)

The GSA-125 combined airspeed and altitude indicator:

And the GSA-RMI-B:

Both for the princely sum of 1014 Euro (not cheap). Order was placed June 10th and a delivery window of 3 to 4 weeks was given. Well I know how Flight Illusions works, I doubted I was going to get it them that quickly.

Almost 7 weeks later, on 27th of July I contacted Flight Illusions to see what the next delivery window would be. I was promised the following week.

Four weeks later, I checked in again - still no sign of delivery. On 22nd of August I was told the missing part was in, "expect delivery next week".

30th of August received an email advising of "issues with our standard courier". To be fair to Flight Illusions, when they resolved the issue, they expressed the delivery to me.

9th of September, the gauges arrived. And they look stunning! They really have done a fantastic job on these units. Except...

I noticed some excess glue on the glass of the RMI-B. Also, the GSA-125 refused to cooperate after assigning a new ID to the unit (as per the instructions provided).

Contacted Flight Illusions on September 13th asking for advice. No response.

October 3rd, still nothing. I don't know what's going on with the Flight Illusion folk but until they get their act together I would advise buyer beware. What the heck Mark?

Unlike my experience with the good folk at CPFlight. Given the favorable dollar/Euro exchange rate and a recent bonus check burning a hole in my pocket, I decided to spring for the forward and aft overhead panels. Ordered them on August 24th, was advised that the units would ship week of September 7th, received the packages on September 14th.

They are beautiful! And very sturdy. I opted for the overhead panel covers and the combined heft of panel and cover is impressive. I'll need to have a sturdy frame to support the weight.

Plugged them in, made a simple configuration change in ProSim and everything fired up perfectly. I cannot think of a bigger contrast between 2 vendors. Claudio and Paolo have done a fantastic job with the overhead, plus they have great customer service. Laura from CPFlight kept me up to date with the build and ship dates, they really are the gold standard of the sim building world. Now if they would only build a motorized TQ, I will junk the POS I purchased from Revolution Simproducts and will buy theirs instead.

What else? Well the twin yoke build is still sitting in the workshop in pieces. I got it to a point where both of the control columns and yokes were mounted, only to discover that the heavy duty screen door closers don't have enough strength to pull the assembly into place. Next attempt I'll take out the dampers I have in the current control column and will try those.

Also (for reasons even I can't explain) I got obsessed with dropping in an intercom. No idea why - if I ever finish the build I can't imagine anyone sitting in the right hand seat with me. Nevertheless I sprung for a couple of Ruscool units: